100 British Bus Routes: Route 20
Walthamstow Central to Debden
30 April 2022
ABOVE: HCT Group‘s 2550e, LG21 HZM, one of only a couple of electric buses in this fleet (most on route 20 are hybrids). This is Loughton. All pictures in this article taken on Good Friday, 15th April 2022.
Operator: Hackney Community Transport for Transport for London (TfL)
Runs: Daily
Weekday frequency: Every 15-16 minutes
Estimated Peak Vehicle Requirement: 10 buses
Off-peak journey time: 66 minutes
Estimated route length: 10 miles
Runs: Daily
Weekday frequency: Every 15-16 minutes
Estimated Peak Vehicle Requirement: 10 buses
Off-peak journey time: 66 minutes
Estimated route length: 10 miles
Transport for London’s route 20 is something of an oddity – most TfL bus routes with low route numbers are major central London trunk routes. This one, though, heads right out of the TfL area and into Essex.
The current iteration seems to date back to 1968, although there was an earlier version in the same general area from 1948 until 1966, and associated services 20A and 20B bridged the gap when the plain 20 wasn’t running (thanks to Ian Armstrong’s London Bus Routes site for that background information).
I’ve known the current route 20 since it took broadly its current routing in 1976, when the northern ends of routes 20 (then Walthamstow – Loughton – Epping) and 20A (Leytonstone – Loughton – Debden) were swapped over. The switch coincided with the conversion of the latter from RT to driver-only DMS operation. The 20 itself had gone driver-only in 1969, with ‘Merlin’ MB single-deckers, and was promoted to DMS at the same time.
Walthamstow Central Bus Station is covered in scaffolding – it looks like it’s holding the roof up, although that’s probably an exaggeration on my part. The former public toilets have been converted for staff use only, so the rest of us have to hold on, or traipse over to the shopping centre some distance away.
There are lots of people around. Good Friday, the day of my visit, has become such a significant shopping day that TfL decided some years ago to run a Saturday timetable on this day rather than the traditional Sunday one; a good move.
The electric bus revolution seems to have reached Walthamstow a little ahead of other areas. Recent tender awards have seen both single- and double-decker electric buses added to local services in significant numbers, and it really shows here. It feels like every other vehicle coming round from the other side of the bus station is an electric one.
Route 20, though, is mainly hybrid, with just a couple of electric vehicles. It runs every 15 minutes on Mondays to Fridays, but the Saturday shopping hours services is every 16 minutes; an odd frequency that presumably allows the saving of one vehicle. The operator is Hackney Community Transport (HCT); once exactly what is sounded like, but now a much bigger operation which, as HCT Group, has involvement in services in many different parts of the country. Profits made go into making “a positive social difference”, which is excellent.
The route is run by high-specification (by London standards) E400 MMC City vehicles, with a special seat moquette that recognises the London heritage, both in its colours and in the incorporation of a London Transport-style roundel.
ABOVE: Top deck interior of the HCT Enviro400 City, with its traditional London Transport colours on the seat moquette. The scaffolding in place at Walthamstow Central Bus Station is visible to our right.
ABOVE: Close-up showing the London Transport roundels incorporated in the moquette design.
On the first part of the journey you cannot doubt that you are in London. We head down Hoe Street towards Leyton; Hoe Street is a typically narrow, suburban London street, crowded and congested. But stay with me, as the scenery is really going to improve.
It starts to do so when we make a left turn into Lea Bridge Road, just short of Leyton Green, and we soon come to Whipps Cross. From here, we have open green space on the right, in the form of the Leyton Flats; not living accommodation but the very start of the vast expanse that will become Epping Forest.
It’s noticeable that cycle lanes have been put in all around this area; in fact it seems to me like all across the London Borough of Waltham Forest. In most cases, bus shelters and bus pick-up /set-down points are on opposite sides of the cycle lanes, and some of the cycle lanes are two-way. Doesn’t feel very safe to me.
ABOVE: Cycle lane between the bus stop and the roadside at Peterborough Road, near Whipps Cross.
Onto the Woodford New Road now and we’re deep into the forest, with trees lining the road on both sides and a feeling that we’re much further away from central London than we are.
Back down to earth as we cross the A406 North Circular – a proper trunk road at this point. Soon we leave Waltham Forest and the cycle lanes immediately stop. Not that everyone finds them useful anyway…
At Woodford Green my attention is drawn to a restaurant that clearly used to be a bank.
ABOVE: Woodford Green
Into Buckhurst Hill and another vehicle on the route is waiting for time outside another posh-looking building that now houses a Toby Carvery. There are many posh-looking buildings around here!
ABOVE: 2545 (YX19 ORW) waits time outside the Buckhurst Hill Toby Carvery near Stag Lane
The rural nature of this part of the route fades briefly as we come into Loughton Town Centre and double-run via the station. We have long since crossed out of Greater London and into Essex and yet here we are at a major station of the London Underground, with a frequency as one would expect of the tube!
There are two security guards at the station entrance for some reason. Is trouble expected?
The bus stops round here show how much more complicated the bus arrangements are once one leaves the TfL area (which has no suffixed routes nowadays and very few that don’t run seven days a week).
ABOVE: Still a London-style bus stop flag, provided by TfL but showing the myriad of buses that serve this stop (only three of which, plus school services, are TfL services). Incidentally the Traveline web address is out-of-date (has been www.traveline.info for some years now), but at least the phone number is still correct!
As Loughton High Road turns into Church Hill, we come to a branch of Lidl. Before you question my sanity in mentioning this, I would recognise that a branch of Lidl wouldn’t normally be significant for this blog, but this branch is the building that was once the original Loughton bus garage, closed in 1953. There’s a plaque to mark this, complete with an image of what looks like the original B type London bus.
When the garage closed, the operation moved to a new site over the road, but, despite being the more recent building, there is no trace of this later garage, which closed in 1986 when much of its work, including route 20, was lost by what was by this time London Regional Transport, in an early round of route tendering (the 20 was picked up by Eastern National).
Although the second garage is long gone, I do vaguely feel like I recognise the area – I came here a few times to see what was parked up in public view. It was one of the first London red bus garages to go to 100% driver-only operation, and suffered the indignity of having all of its double-deckers taken away in the early 80s in favour of an allocation of Leyland National LS-class vehicles. That change affected route 20 as well of course; it had almost-new Leyland Titans prior to that.
It’s only a short distance from here to Debden by the direct route (which would be the TfL 397), but the 20 takes a detour through the residential Debden Estate. Again, the ambience is more of a semi-rural setting than something a few miles from the London border, with lots of green space. The passengers feel like Londoners though.
ABOVE: 2539 (YX19 ORO) approaching the Colebrook Lane stop on Jessel Drive. My bus must wait a moment…
And finally to Debden, where we are dropped off just behind Debden Broadway, so that the bus can use the Broadway itself to turn around and head back to Walthamstow. Being a TfL service, the driver has arrived before his predecessor has left Debden, and thus will have about 18 minutes’ rest before starting out again.
ABOVE: Debden Broadway – the bus turns left here and goes round the block, terminating around the back near the station.
I vividly remember this route from my childhood. It hasn’t changed much in the grand scheme, and must be one of the most picturesque routes on the TfL network. Is it significant that what makes it such a lovely ride is the fact that a lot of it operates outside the Greater London area? Discuss.